K-12

Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: Letters M-Q

In this multi-part series, we are profiling the best of the best blogs in education, in alphabetical order. In the previous article, I introduced letters I-L and in this one, I will discuss letters M-Q.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

Magical Maths

What started out as a blog about maths has become a blog for teachers to post various opinion pieces, as well as practical ideas and exercises to implement in the classroom.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 18, Helpfulness 20, Authority 25

Total Score: 81

Twitter: @magicalmaths

MiddleWeb

MiddleWeb provides resources for the middle grades. They focus on five streams of content: Resource Roundups, Themed Blogs, Articles, Interviews and Book Reviews. Co-teaching, how to help students crush math anxiety, and opening your classroom doors to family audiences are all recent topics that have been covered on their very active blog.

Score: Activity 19, Originality 19, Helpfulness 20, Authority 20

Total Score: 78

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @middleweb

MindShift

This is an extremely exciting blog as it explores anything and everything that is proven to help learning, be it technology, games, or new teaching methods. For teachers looking to incorporate helpful tools and techniques in the classroom, this is blog is a must read.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 25, Helpfulness 25, Authority 24

Total Score: 99

Twitter: @MindShiftKQED

Email: [email protected]

Moving at the Speed of Creativity

If you’re very into edtech, then this is a blog by Wesley Fryer is for you. Engaging posts about advancement in edtech and how to use various tools, as well as book reviews.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 24, Helpfulness 20, Authority 25

Total Score: 89

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @wfryer

Ms. Cassidy’s Classroom Blog

Ms. Cassidy has a love of teaching that comes across in her blog posts, which describe activities she’s done with her class. It will provide you with doses of inspiration and ideas for activities you can use in the classroom.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 20

Total Score: 76

Twitter: @mscassidysclass

My Paperless Classroom

A tech integration specialist presents his real-life trials and triumphs. He also shares ideas for unique Makerspace projects.

Score: Activity 17, Originality 18.5, Helpfulness 18.7, Authority 20

Total Score: 81.2%

Twitter: @SamPatue

NACAC Admitted

The NACAC (or National Association for College Admission Counseling) is the place to go if you work in admission, or if you (or your kids) are getting ready to take the plunge into the admissions process.

Score:  Active 25, Original 22, Helpfulness 24, Authority 23

Total: 94

Twitter: @NACAC

NAFSA: Association of International Educators

NAFSA focuses on the latest in news, from politics to holidays, around the world. They also offer advice on a number of different topics through guest bloggers.

Score:  Active 22, Original 24, Helpfulness 22.5, Authority 25

Total: 93.5

Twitter: @NAFSA

NEA Today

NEA Today provides News and features from the National Education Association. If you like to keep up to date on what’s going on in the field of education, including research and some theories and ideas to implement in the classroom, then this is an excellent blog.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 25, Helpfulness 23.5, Authority 25

Total Score: 97.5

Twitter: @NEAToday

On an e-Journey With Generation Y

An Australian Information Technology teacher shares her ideas and experiences around fostering global connections in the classroom. She is especially masterful in her use of Skype as a tool to teach about culture.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 20, Helpfulness 19, Authority 19

Total Score: 76

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @murcha

On Campus

Covering the latest information on campus, this blog is a treasure trove of the latest news, trends, and statistics. It is a great resource for students, professors, and staff, and gives you a way to connect with others to get more information.

Score:  Active 22, Original 16, Help 22, Authority 17

Total: 77

Twitter: @OnCampusWGBH

Prof Hacker

This blog focuses on teaching, technology, and productivity within academia, but it does occasionally stray into politics when the latest news affects higher education.

Score:  Active 25, Original 24, Helpfulness 22, Authority 25

Total: 96

Twitter: @ProfHacker

Pearson Teaching & Learning Blog

Pearson provides products and services in the educational field and their Teaching & Learning PreK-12 Education blog is very informative, with useful tips and thoughts to ponder.

Score: Activity 23, Originality 20, Helpfulness 20, Authority 22.5

Total Score: 85.5

Twitter: @PearsonNorthAm

Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo

Larry Ferlazzo is an award-winning English and Social Studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif. He’s also an author of several books related to teaching and is big on using goal setting to motivate students. His blog often offers Q&As with other writers on topics surrounding education. It’s a blog that definitively provides a fresh look at teaching and education as a whole. As Larry also answers readers questions regarding teaching, you’re welcome to contact him.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 23, Helpfulness 21, Authority 25

Total Score: 93

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @Larryferlazzo

Well, that’s it for letters M-Q. Did we miss any?

 

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: Letters I-L

In this multi-part series, we are profiling the best of the best education blogs, in alphabetical order. In the previous article, I introduced letters F-H and in this one, I will discuss letters I-L.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

IIE Opening Minds

The focus of this particular blog is on the various international learning experiences, such as studying abroad and latest learning theories around the globe. It takes a unique look at how to open minds through higher education on the international stage.

Score:  Active 16.9, Original 23, Helpfulness 22, Authority 24

Total: 85.9

Twitter: @IIEglobal

Email: [email protected]

iLearn Technology

Kelly Tenkely started out as a teacher and turned into a technology integration specialist who started her own school, implementing all the inspirational new educational techniques available. The blog focuses mainly on implementing technology in the classroom using various tools, but also ideas around education. As with any blog you will use whatever material and ideas you see fit to implement in your classroom.

Score: Activity 21, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21.5, Authority 21

Total Score: 83.5

Twitter: @ktenkeley

I’m a Girl Who Codes

The site is full of inspiring stories about young women who have found success in the world of coding. You will find stories of young women who used coding to start businesses or to find hope in homelessness.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 24, Helpfulness 24, Authority 25

Total Score: 98

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @GirlsWhoCode

Instructional Tech Talk

Jeff Herb presents a potpourri of videos, podcasts, and articles about the effective use of technology tools. Recently he has shared strategies for using Ozobot, as well as tips for the use of online videos in the classroom.

Score: Activity 17, Originality 21.5, Helpfulness 21.5, Authority 20.5

Total Score: 80.5

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @jeffherb

Inside Higher Ed

This is a site that everyone in higher education should bookmark because it has posts about virtually everything in the field. With an area that goes to other blogs and articles, it is like a search engine just for those in the industry.

Score:  Active 25, Original 20., Helpfulness 21, Authority 22

Total: 88.5

Twitter: @InsideHigherEd

Inspired Instruction: Videos from the Teaching Channel  

This excellent blog shares useful videos from the teaching channel, offering ideas for what to incorporate into your classroom. One of the best blogs for easy implementation of tools shared thanks to the videos that make it easy to see exactly how to implement it.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18

Total Score: 72

International Student Blog

Designed to help international students, this blog focuses on the issues, concerns, and news specific to the niche. Whether you need advice on socializing in a new country, tips on traveling, or what to expect over the various holidays around the world, it is a great place for those who are learning outside of their home country.

Score:  Active 22, Original 23, Helpfulness 21, Authority 19.7

Total: 85.7

Twitter: @IntStudent

ISTE EdTekHub

A recognized leader in educational technology, ISTE analyzes current trends in areas such as coding and Virtual Reality. Updated daily, the blog will keep you up-to-date on the changing world of edtech.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 23, Helpfulness 23, Authority 24.5

Total Score: 95.5

Twitter: @isteconnects

Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch

Educational technologist Kathy Schrock shares her discoveries and insights about educational technology and its impact in the classroom. Recent blog posts offer ideas for using Pokemon Go in the classroom and for creating 360° images with a cell phone.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21.5, Authority 23

Total Score: 90.5

Twitter: @kathyschrock

Email: [email protected]

Kleinspiration

Author and award-winning educator Erin Klein provides practical strategies to increase student achievement and engagement with technology. She earns top marks for her engaging and relevant website.

Score: Activity 22, Originality 23, Helpfulness 22.9, Authority 24

Total Score: 92%

Twitter: @KleinErin

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day

Larry Ferlazzo has another blog and this one, too, is helpful for teachers. Especially if you want to stay up to date with the latest news regarding teaching practices and studies on what’s effective in the classroom as Ferlazzo scours the net on an almost daily basis for news to share and also expresses his own opinions. The focus is ESL, ELL and EFL.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21, Authority 25

Total Score: 92

Twitter: @larryferlazzo

Learning in Hand

Tony Vincent’s technology blog has been around since the 1990s, and it’s still a treasure trove of advice and resources today. Recently he provides tips for teacher iPad use and formative assessment tools.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 20.5, Helpfulness 21, Authority 22

Total Score: 87.5

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @tonyvincent

Learning with ‘e’s

Steve Wheeler, a professor of educational technology, explores our changing culture and the ways teachers must adapt to it. His blog features periodic interviews with education influencers.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 20, Helpfulness 22.5, Authority 23

Total Score: 85.5

Twitter: @timbuckteeth

Logorrhea

As the name suggests, this is a blog that tends to go all over the place, hitting both high profile and more obscure topics in higher education. There is a lot of advice in that can help you keep things in perspective through some of the most difficult situations.

Score:  Active 17, Original 23, Help 18, Authority 17.5

Total: 75.5

Twitter: @DavidJHinson

Well, that’s it for letters I-L. Did we miss any?

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: Letters D-E

In this multi-part series, we are profiling the best of the best education blogs, in alphabetical order. In the previous article, I introduced the letter C and in this one, I will discuss letters D-E.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

Daily Edventures

Anthony Salcito is the Vice President of Education for Microsoft Corporation’s Worldwide Public Sector and he’s the man behind Daily Edventures – a 365-day look at global heroes in education. You will find thoughts about education and technology from teachers all over the world on this blog, which is a unique and interesting concept. Possibly a bit biased in favor of Microsoft, but an all-round amazing blog.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 25, Helpfulness 23.5, Authority 25

Total Score: 98.5

Twitter: @MicrosoftEDU

Dangerously Irrelevant

This blog addresses issues of social and ethical concern as they relate to the use of technology in the classroom. Frequent topics include the development of self-actualization and leadership.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21, Authority 22

Total Score: 88

Twitter: @mcleod

Email: [email protected]

Discovery Education

As the name implies this blog covers various topics about educational development, including practices to implement in the classroom and digital content. As with so many other blogs there’s a strong focus on edtech and STEM. A big plus is that they have free teacher resources – from lesson plans to brain boosters.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 24.5, Helpfulness 25, Authority 25

Total Score: 99.5

Twitter: @DiscoveryEd

Ditch That Textbook

Ditch That Textbook is Google certified innovator and teacher Matt Miller’s take on how to implement tech in the classroom. The focus seems to be on high school and up.

Score: Activity 22, Originality 20, Helpfulness 20, Authority 24

Total Score: 86

Twitter: @mattmiller

Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

This blog provides a look at diversity in higher education from many different angles. As the name suggests, it highlights the issues of concern to minorities in education.

Score:  Active 24, Original 25, Helpfulness 24, Authority 24

Total: 97

Twitter: @DiverseIssues

Dr. Doug Green

After over 30 years in education Dr. Doug Green left his job as an elementary principal to care for his ailing wife. After her death he decided to do something to help parents and educators and started scouring the net and reading books, which he then summarized in bite sized nuggets.

Score: Activity 16, Originality 17, Helpfulness 17, Authority 17

Total Score: 67

Twitter: @DrDougGreen

EdTech for Beginners

This blog by Neil Jarrett, a Google certified teacher who teaches at an international school in Thailand, does what it says on the label: teaches edtech for beginners. It also offers tools and updates for teachers already well versed in edtech however and is worth a visit if you’re looking for new edtech tools for your classroom.

Score: Activity 16, Originality 17, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18

Total Score: 69

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @edtechneil

Ed Tech Review

The EdTechReview, not surprisingly, reviews anything to do with edtech. They also offer reports, studies, insights, webinars, etc. It’s one of the best resources for all things edtech and how to incorporate it in your classroom. However, not all content is for K-12 as they also cater to higher ed.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 20, Helpfulness 20, Authority 21

Total Score:

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @etr_in

EdTech Roundup

Just as its name implies, this is a weekly “roundup” of all the latest edtech news and developments. This blog is ideal simply for staying informed about breakthroughs and trends.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 17.5, Helpfulness 16.5, Authority 17.5

Total Score: 75%

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @ETRoundup

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

This blog covers everything and some when it comes to teaching using technology. It doesn’t follow some sort of set how to guide focusing on one thing, but rather anything covering educational technology and how to incorporate it in the classroom.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 23, Helpfulness 21, Authority 18

Total Score: 87

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @medkh8

Ed Tech Strategies

Doug Levin blogs about the current legal and political scene, and how policy affects the availability of technology in the classroom. Most recently, he discussed possible FCC changes and how schools will be affected.

Score: Activity 15, Originality 20, Helpfulness 21, Authority 21

Total Score: 77

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @douglevin

EdSurge

This blog is updated daily with the current edtech news. Recent articles explored the role of teachers in the evaluation of technology and the role of edtech in educational research.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 24, Helpfulness 25, Authority 25

Total Score: 99

Twitter: @EdSurge

Email: [email protected]

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

Med Kharbach shares free tutorials and reviews of apps and tools. Topics include how to convert PDFs to editable text and basic Google Classroom tips.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 18, Helpfulness 21, Authority 21.5

Total Score: 84.5

Twitter: @medkh9

Educational Technology Guy

David Andrade shows teachers a variety of options to access free tools and resources for effective technology use in the classroom. Recently he shared a framework to help education leaders pilot new technology.

Score: Activity 23, Originality 18, Helpfulness 16.8, Authority 17.5

Total Score: 75.3

Twitter: @daveandcori

EDUCAUSE Blogs

This blog has a focus on legal and administrative concerns. There is a hefty dose of privacy related information posted on a regular basis, which is great as it is one of the fastest changing areas of technology. There is also a considerable amount of policy issues addressed, making it a great site for admin and staff.

Score:  Active 22, Original 21, Helpfulness 15, Authority 23
Total: 81

Twitter: @EDUCAUSEreview

Edudemic

This blog contains topics both for teachers and students and is an awesome resource when it comes for anything related to technology and teaching. There are also certain other topics discussed on the blog from time to time. There are several “teacher guides” also available, such as The Teacher’s Guide to Twitter, the Teacher’s Guide to Flipped Classrooms, etc.

Score: Activity 23.5, Originality 24.5, Helpfulness 25, Authority 25

Total Score: 98

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @Edudemic

Edutopia

In their own words: “You’ll find practical classroom strategies and tips from real educators, as well as lesson ideas, personal stories, and innovative approaches to improving your teaching practice.” And those words are accurate indeed – if you’re looking for interesting articles raging from helping students improve their mindset to high school book recommendations, this is an excellent blog to visit. What’s more, it’s well designed.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 25, Helpfulness 25, Authority 25

Total Score: 100

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @edutopia

edX Blog

The blog provides free courses and other professional development resources for technology leaders. Recent topics include the future of artificial intelligence and the use of social media in job searches.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 24, Helpfulness 24.5, Authority 25

Total Score: 98.5

Twitter: @edXOnline

E-learning Provocateur

Australian e-learning manager Ryan Tracy blogs about e-learning as a route to deeper thinking. He frequently ponders “cognitive reality” and the influence and potential of Virtual and Augmented Reality.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 20.5, Helpfulness 20, Authority 20.5

Total Score: 79%

Twitter: @ryantracey

e-Literate

For the latest in initiatives, news, edtech, and other concerns in higher education, this is a great blog to visit often. With daily posts, there is a wealth of information on this site. When you have some extra time, dig into the archives for some additional learning.

Score:  Active 22, Original 18, Help 19, Authority 17.5
Total: 76.5

Twitter: @mfeldstein67

Emerging Ed Tech

Daily posts include thoughts on how to use technology to improve reading. Articles focus on edtech as a vehicle to drive meaningful learning.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 18.5, Helpfulness 19, Authority 18.5

Total Score: 80

Twitter: @EmergingEdTech

EricStoller.com

This blog highlights many different conferences, technologies, and methods that are instrumental to being successful in the academic world. As it is managed by a consultant in the UK, you can also find some wisdom and words about how to successful work for others around the globe. There is a nice dovetail between the two areas, making it a blog that is great for educators and business professionals.

Score:  Active 18, Original 25, Helpfulness 18, Authority 23
Total: 84

Twitter: @EricStoller

Erin Klein

Whilst the blog isn’t terribly prolific, it’s terribly well known and there’s a live streaming every first Tuesday of the month. The focus of the blog is the power of student voice, how technology can positively influence teaching and how classroom design impacts teaching.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 24, Helpfulness 24, Authority 25

Total Score: 93

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @KleinErin

eSchool News

Their slogan reads “daily tech news and innovation” and that pretty much sums it up, though not all articles are related to tech and innovation, but simply education in general. Definitively a great news feed for interesting articles/blog posts about education and various tools to implement in the classroom.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 23, Helpfulness 23, Authority 23

Total Score: 94

Twitter: @eschoolnews

Well, that’s it for letters D-E. Did we miss any?

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, K-12, Teachers

Understanding Academic Language and its Connection to School Success

Carlyn Friedberg, MS, CCC-SLP, Assessment Specialist, Lexia Learning

Alison Mitchell, Ph.D., NCSP, Director of Assessment, Lexia Learning

Elizabeth Brooke, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Chief Education Officer, Lexia Learning

As students progress through school, they are expected to demonstrate increasing levels of sophistication in their language and reading skills across all content areas. In order to gain knowledge through independent reading and participate in meaningful discussions in the classroom, students must master the complex words and phrases that characterize the language of school. Proficiency in these skills, otherwise known as academic language, is critical for reading comprehension and overall academic success.

Across the country, educators and policymakers have begun to acknowledge the importance of academic language, as well as its notable absence from curriculum and assessment. Recent national and state standards reflect a shift towards academic language by calling for instructional focus on words that appear across content areas, as well as opportunities for students to develop knowledge of words and concepts through discussion and reading (Baker et al, 2014). Students must be able to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words, understand nuances in word meanings and multiple meaning words, and utilize sophisticated words and phrases, including transitions and precise word choice (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). These demands are particularly challenging for students with impoverished experience or limited exposure to English.

Many students struggle with academic language because their exposure to language outside of school does not include advanced words and phrases. The transition to “school talk” poses a particular challenge for English Language Learners (ELLs) since they must simultaneously develop everyday language already familiar to their monolingual peers, along with academic language skills (O’Brien and Leighton, 2015). Without exposure to advanced English language skills at home, ELLs face double the demands of language learning. Increasing numbers of ELL students attending schools across the country, as well as significant numbers of students from low income backgrounds and those with learning disabilities, have made it an educational imperative that instruction and assessment directly promote students’ academic language proficiency.

What is Academic Language?

The term academic language may be used to refer to formal English rules, structure, and content for academic dialogue and text, and the communicative conventions that allow students to meet the demands of school environments. A concise definition refers to academic language as “the specialized language, both oral and written, of academic settings that facilitates communication and thinking about disciplinary content” (Nagy & Townsend, 2012). For actionable, instructional purposes, these specialized language skills include advanced vocabulary and syntax that help students unlock key elements of both oral and written language. These skills support the listener or reader in gaining a rich understanding of the message being delivered.

What are key elements of Academic Language?

Vocabulary and syntactic knowledge in oral and written language encompass specific skills that allow students to meet academic demands across the curriculum. Though commonly used to denote breadth of knowledge of word definitions (i.e., how many words a student knows), vocabulary knowledge also refers to depth of understanding of word parts (prefixes, suffixes, roots), multiple meanings, and figurative language that shape the subtleties of vocabulary use. Proficiency in word parts and relationships helps students acquire new vocabulary, reason about the meaning of unfamiliar words, and comprehend the sophisticated vocabulary that characterizes academic language, including:

  • Morphologically complex words (words with multiple parts, including prefixes and suffixes) e.g., comfortable; prediction; reconciliation
  • General-academic words that are high frequency and may be abstract or have multiple meanings, e.g., investigate; principle; asylum
  • Discipline-specific words that typically contain Greek combining forms, e.g., ecosystem; longitude; integer

Syntactic knowledge refers to the understanding of parts of speech and rules that govern how words and phrases combine into sentences, and how sentences combine into paragraphs. To comprehend connected text, students must master basic grammatical rules as well as sophisticated knowledge of words and phrases that are used to establish referents, organize ideas, denote relationships between concepts, and develop text cohesion, including:

  • Use of connective words requiring sentence-level inferencing, e.g., consequently; whereas; similarly
  • Resolution of pronoun reference, e.g., We examined the extent to which native plants in coastal regions adapted to climatic changes in their (The reader needs to connect the pronoun their to the noun native plants)
  • Grammatical agreement between subjects, verbs, and tense, e.g., All of the candidates, as well as the current President, are attending the televised debate.

Given the increasing emphasis on students’ abilities to independently engage with complex text, perhaps the domain most impacted by students’ academic language skills as they progress through school is reading comprehension. In fact, researchers have shown that reading comprehension difficulties are in large part due to students’ challenges in understanding the academic language of school texts (Uccelli et al, 2015). Vocabulary knowledge particularly predicts students’ literacy achievement, because it contributes significantly to both word identification and reading comprehension skills. In addition, vocabulary and syntactic knowledge have been shown to account for the majority of individual differences in reading comprehension performance for students in upper elementary school through high school (Foorman, Koon, Petscher, Mitchell, & Truckenmiller, 2015). Vocabulary knowledge and syntactic knowledge help students engage with text and progress towards deep reading comprehension with increasing independence by supporting their abilities to:

  • Acquire knowledge through reading and synthesize it with previously learned material
  • Analyze audience, structure, purpose, and tone of texts
  • Evaluate evidence, main ideas, and details in what they read

How do you teach Academic Language?

Instruction in academic language supports students’ access to content across all subject areas. Because the functions and structures of students’ home languages can significantly affect their reading comprehension, even when their first language is English (Westby, 2005), this instruction must be explicit and structured. Using language from the curriculum, educators of all disciplines can provide students with repeated exposure to and application of high-utility vocabulary words, both general-academic and discipline-specific, instruction in word-learning strategies and word relationships, and practice with complex syntactic forms.

In order to maximize the impact of academic language instruction, educators need to first understand their students’ specific language competencies. Educators should assess students’ knowledge of word associations, use of structural analysis, and abilities to make connections and inferences within and across sentences. In addition, evaluating both academic language and reading comprehension skills through use of authentic academic texts will help educators to identify students who need support coordinating vocabulary and syntactic knowledge with comprehension strategies.  By assessing students’ skills before, during, and after teaching academic language, educators can collect actionable data that helps identify which students are likely to be successful or at risk for academic difficulty and what areas to target in instruction.

Academic Language Instruction for Early Elementary Students

Students need a strong foundation in age-appropriate language to aid their comprehension and expression in the classroom and support them towards engaging with more complex language as they progress through school. For early elementary students who are learning to read, academic language can be taught via oral language instruction. As students’ reading skills develop, they can apply their knowledge to text. Educators can leverage younger students’ natural enthusiasm for learning new words and participating in discussions to teach vocabulary and syntactic skills using the following strategies:

  • Foster a language-rich classroom that includes opportunities for students to learn and apply new vocabulary when following directions, describing, participating in conversations, and listening and responding to stories.
  • Provide explicit instruction in word relationships and categories, high-utility vocabulary (e.g., spatial, relational, temporal, and descriptive words), and content-area words.
  • Teach word-learning strategies for acquiring new vocabulary, including the use of sentence-level context clues and word analysis skills.
  • Demonstrate self-monitoring of comprehension when encountering complex language and ideas in texts read aloud.

Academic Language Instruction for Upper Elementary and Secondary Students

As students approach third grade and beyond, extracting relevant meaning while reading becomes more essential but challenging as students encounter texts that are increasingly complex and diverse (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). To meet these challenges, upper elementary and secondary students need instruction in more sophisticated academic language skills, including advanced vocabulary and grammatical structures. In particular, instruction in words and phrases that contain Greek and Latin word parts are essential to academic success (Corson, 1997), as 60–90% of words found in academic contexts contain these forms. Illuminating the connection between the root “struct” and the words “instruct,” “construct,” and “destruction” not only provides a key to the meaning of those words, but may also inspire students to engage with future novel words in an inquiring manner. Educators can help older students build their vocabularies, learn ways to reason about unfamiliar words, and think critically about what they have read with the following strategies:

  • Teach students about the morphological structure of words (prefixes, suffixes, and base/root words) and how words are joined together. Transitioning students’ thinking from “I don’t know the meaning of this word” to “What parts of this word do I recognize?” has the potential to generate a more active approach in a student’s response to spoken and written language.
  • Before students read class selections, preview and pre-teach vocabulary that will be important for their comprehension of the text, and provide semantic maps (graphic organizers or “webs” that connect new vocabulary to related words and concepts) when teaching new words.
  • Combine exposure and modeling with guided practice and independent, repeated oral and written application.

In addition to developing vocabulary, students need explicit instruction in the ways that words connect to other words, phrases, and concepts; new words must be learned and applied alongside the language structures within which they appear (Nagy and Townsend, 2012). With opportunities to read, write, say, and hear language that varies in form and function across contexts, students can internalize syntactic knowledge skills. In particular, focusing on connective (or “signal”) words and phrases in text can help students interpret relationships between ideas within and across sentences, clarify what they have already read, and provide clues to what they will read.  To teach syntax skills, educators can use the following strategies:

  • When discussing texts, coach students through the meaning of sentences that require careful interpretation, especially those that require connections or inferences about multiple ideas.
  • Provide students with sentence frames that chunk complex sentences into meaningful phrases and demonstrate how changes in word choice and order affect meaning, subject-verb agreement, and pronoun usage.
  • Enhance lessons and conversations using academic language with pictures, video, and other multimedia to help students with language weaknesses connect definition and function to concepts and their current background knowledge.

Summary

Through targeted assessment and explicit instruction in academic language, educators have the power to impact students’ vocabulary knowledge, syntactic knowledge, and, subsequently, their reading comprehension. Although this instruction is particularly critical for struggling readers and English Language Learners, all students will benefit from targeted instruction in the words, phrases, and forms that constitute academic texts and discussions. While teachers’ classroom practices support students individually, school leaders can bolster language gains through selection of curriculum, assessment, and professional development opportunities that target this goal.  A unified mission around academic language helps districts and schools improve students’ likelihood of educational success and provides students with the tools they need to comprehend their world, in school and beyondReferences:

Click here to access the references for this whitepaper.

 

 

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: The Letter C

In this multi-part series, we are profiling the best of the best education blogs, in alphabetical order. In the previous article, I introduced letters A-B and in this one, I will discuss the letter C.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

Catlin Tucker

This blog offers a candid exploration of different solutions for blended learning. Recent offerings explore the pros and cons of co-teaching.

Score: Activity 19, Originality 22, Helpfulness 20.5, Authority 22

Total Score: 83.5

Twitter: @Catlin_Tucker

Campus Grotto

A great blog for students and educators, this site provides a lot of information on pretty much anything related to higher education. It is geared more towards those who are new to the arena, but it can give you some great insight no matter how long you have been in academia.

Score:  Active 19, Original 20, Help 20, Authority 15
Total: 70

Twitter: @CampusGrotto

Email form:  http://campusgrotto.com/contact-us

Campus Overload

This is the site to bookmark if you want to stay current on any news that is either related to higher education or that can have a serious effect on the field. Many of the issues posted are related to activism and concerns on campuses across the country.

Score:  Active 24, Original 15, Help 22, Authority 15
Total: 76

Email:  [email protected]

Campus Technology

For the latest in news about available and upcoming technology on campus, you should have this blog bookmarked. Multiple posts are added daily, making it something you can make part of your regular routine.

Score:  Active 21, Original 24, Helpfulness 23, Authority 25
Total: 93

Twitter: @Campus_Tech

Center for Digital Education

This blog offers regular updates to news about efforts to implement technology in public and private schools. Warnings about email scams and posts about mobile devices in schools will keep you up-to-date on issues affecting edtech.

Score: Activity 23, Originality18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 17.5

Total Score: 76.5

Twitter: @centerdigitaled

Christensen Institute

The Christensen Institute is a think tank on the topics of education, healthcare and economy. They post several interesting blogs about development in education and how it applies to teachers.

Score: Activity 21, Originality 21, Helpfulness 16, Authority 25

Total Score: 83

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @ChristensenInst

Class Tech Tips

Edtech consultant Dr. Monica Burns provides a rundown of all the latest technology tips and tricks. Recently she demonstrated an app called Kinvolved for taking attendance, as well as the annotation of images using an iPad.

Score: Activity 22, Originality 20, Helpfulness 21.5, Authority 22.5

Total Score: 86

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @ClassTechTips

Competency Works

This blog, as the name suggests, is about competency education and how to transform your teaching to take this into account. They post almost daily and the blogs, if nothing else, will make you contemplate how education is constantly being transformed and how you can participate in the transformation.

Score: Activity 17, Originality 18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18

Total Score: 71

Twitter: @CompetencyWorks

Confessions of a Community College Dean

Followers of this blog get a look into the life and experiences of a dean. With facts, answers, tips, tricks, and the occasional touching tribute, this blog is great for anyone in academia. There are also details about how he balances work with family life so you will get a look into his wit and witticisms on a wide range of subjects. It is done somewhat anonymously, so if you want to contact the blogger, you will have to go through the comments section of the blog.

Score:  Active 25, Original 25, Helpfulness 15, Authority 23
Total: 88

Cool Cat Teacher

Vicki Davis interweaves her practical suggestions for student engagement with profound reflections on what it means to be a teacher. For a shot of affirmation, this is the blog to visit.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 23, Helpfulness 23.9, Authority 25

Total Score: 96.9

Twitter: @coolcatteacher

CoSN Blog

The official blog of the Consortium for School Networking presents occasional “Trusted Learning Environment” articles, in which they focus on the technology implementation efforts of member school districts. This will inspire you to think of ways you can make your own school a “Trusted Learning Environment.”

Score: Activity 18, Originality 21.5, Helpfulness 20.5, Authority 21.5

Total Score: 81.5

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @CoSN

Coursera Blog

Though not specific to higher education, this site covers a lot of related areas (as well as a lot that specifically address higher education issues and ideas).

Score:  Active 23, Original 20, Helpfulness 23, Authority 20.8

Total: 86.8

Twitter: @Coursera

Curriculum Matters  

As the blog suggests the focus is on how curriculum changes are affecting classrooms. Two classroom teachers turn educational journalists, Liana Heitin and Jaclyn Zubrzycki, run this blog on Education Week and also include topics coving social media and STEM. It will certainly provide you with food for thought about what should and shouldn’t be included in your curriculum.

Score: Activity 19, Originality 17.5, Helpfulness 18, Authority 19

Total Score: 73.5

Email: [email protected] and [email protected]

Twitter: @LianaHeitin

Cult of Pedagogy

An excellent blog with up to date information about teaching and easy to implement tips for the classroom. The topics covered are very varied – from dealing with youth running away from home from a teacher’s perspective to edtech tools you need to try. The blog was developed due to the author, Jennifer Gonzales, thinking it takes too much time for the average teacher to stay up to date with everything happening in the educational field, so she wanted to pull together the information on one site.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 21, Helpfulness 23, Authority 21

Total Score: 85

Twitter: @cultofpedagogy

Cycles of Learning

Ramsay Musallam relates how he uses unique approaches to technology to make instruction more meaningful to students. Definitely a blog worth checking out.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 20, Helpfulness 20, Authority 20.5

Total Score: 78.5%

Twitter: @mneedleman

Well that does it for the letter C. Did we miss any?

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, First Year Teachers, K-12, Teachers

Empowering Students: The 5E Model Explained

When choosing an instructional model, teachers seek strategies that help students gain a complete understanding of new concepts. They aim to engage students, motivate them to learn, and guide them toward skill development. One of the ways to do that is by incorporating inquiry-based approaches like the 5E Model, which is grounded in active learning.

Research suggests that there is a set order of events that facilitates learning, known as a learning cycle. Educators J. Myron Atkin and Robert Karplus argued in 1962 that effective learning cycles involve three key elements: exploration, term introduction, and concept application. “In their scheme, exploration allowed the learners to become interested in the subject at hand, raise questions, and identify points of dissatisfaction with their current understanding. Introduction of new ideas and terms, primarily by the instructor, but negotiated by both instructor and students, followed. Finally, concept application provided learners with opportunities within the classroom to apply their new ideas, try out their new understandings in novel contexts, and evaluate the completeness of their understanding,” according to Kimberly D. Tanner in the article “Order Matters: Using the 5E Model to Align Teaching With How People Learn.”

Theoretical Foundations

The findings of Atkin and Karplus directly informed the creation of the 5E Model, which focuses on allowing students to understand a concept over time through a series of established steps, or phases. These phases include Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. The 5E Model, developed in 1987 by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, promotes collaborative, active learning in which students work together to solve problems and investigate new concepts by asking questions, observing, analyzing, and drawing conclusions. 

The 5E Model is based on the constructivist theory to learning, which suggests that people construct knowledge and meaning from experiences. By understanding and reflecting on activities, students are able to reconcile new knowledge with previous ideas. According to subject matter expert Beverlee Jobrack, “Educational movements, such as inquiry-based learning, active learning, experiential learning, discovery learning, and knowledge building, are variations of constructivism.”

In the classroom, constructivism requires educators to build inquiry, exploration, and assessment into their instructional approach. In many ways, this means the teacher plays the role of a facilitator, guiding students as they learn new concepts.

The Model Explained

The following is an overview of the five phases of the 5E Model.

Engage 

In the first phase of the learning cycle, the teacher works to gain an understanding of the students’ prior knowledge and identify any knowledge gaps. It is also important to foster an interest in the upcoming concepts so students will be ready to learn. Teachers might task students with asking opening questions or writing down what they already know about the topic. This is also when the concept is introduced to students for the first time.

Explore

During the exploration phase, students actively explore the new concept through concrete learning experiences. They might be asked to go through the scientific method and communicate with their peers to make observations. This phase allows students to learn in a hands-on way.

Explain

This is a teacher-led phase that helps students synthesize new knowledge and ask questions if they need further clarification. For the Explain phase to be effective, teachers should ask students to share what they learned during the Explore phase before introducing technical information in a more direct manner, according to “The 5E Instructional Model: A Learning Cycle Approach for Inquiry-Based Science Teaching.” This is also when teachers utilize video, computer software, or other aides to boost understanding.

Elaborate

The elaboration phase of the 5E Model focuses on giving students space to apply what they’ve learned. This helps them to develop a deeper understanding. Teachers may ask students to create presentations or conduct additional investigations to reinforce new skills. This phase allows students to cement their knowledge before evaluation.

Evaluate

The 5E Model allows for both formal and informal assessment. During this phase, teachers can observe their students and see whether they have a complete grasp of the core concepts. It is also helpful to note whether students approach problems in a different way based on what they learned. Other helpful elements of the Evaluate phase include self-assessment, peer-assessment, writing assignments, and exams.

Application and Effectiveness

The 5E Model is most effective when students are encountering new concepts for the very first time because there is opportunity for a complete learning cycle. According to co-creator Rodger W. Bybee, the 5E Model is best used in a unit of two to three weeks in which each phase is the basis for one or more distinct lessons. “Using the 5Es model as the basis for a single lesson decreases the effectiveness of the individual phases due to shortening the time and opportunities for challenging and restructuring of concepts and abilities—for learning,” Bybee explains. And if too much time is spent on each phase, the structure isn’t as effective and students may forget what they’ve learned.

According to The BSCS 5E Instructional Model: Origins and Effectiveness, “The sustained use of an effective, research-based instructional model can help students learn fundamental concepts in science and other domains.” The following research findings illustrate the positive impact of the 5E Model in classrooms:

The 5E Model allows educators to create a unique learning experience for students. Teachers who can incorporate instructional models like the 5E Model into their classrooms help students build a strong foundation of knowledge through active participation. 

Lesley University’s online Master of Education programs equip teachers with the knowledge and tools to effectively educate students in the modern classroom. With specialized degrees in mathematics education, science in education, and more, Lesley offers opportunities for educators to deepen their understanding of current approaches and hone their teaching skills and assessment strategies. Learn more about Lesley’s online education programs.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: Letters A-B

Staying abreast of the constant changes in education is almost a full-time job on it’s on! That’s why subscribing to a few good education blogs is a convenient and time-saving way to remain knowledgeable about this constantly evolving landscape.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

Education blogs exist for almost every purpose you can imagine. There are blogs dedicated to edtech, higher education, early childhood education, the teaching of math, reading, science and virtually any other discipline that you can think of. There are blogs about coding and blogs about blogging, geared towards every grade level from kindergarten all the way up through the terminal and professional degree levels.

But how do you know which of these are worth your time? We decided to do this work for you. In this multi-part series, I will profile the best of the best blogs in education, in alphabetical order.

Although we did not rank the blogs, we did evaluate them using the following categories as a rubric:

Activity (25%). Information should be updated regularly to reflect the very latest trends.

Originality (25%). It should add value with content that’s different from all the other blogs out there.

Helpfulness (25%). A good education blog should teach you a new skill, direct you to a useful resource, or at least get you to think in a new way about something.

Authority (25%). The author/authors have the authority and credentials to blog about the topic.

Each category was assigned an equal weight in our evaluation. They were averaged together to determine the final score. This score is meant to provide you with information about the overall quality of each blog. Let’s begin by tackling letters A-B.

A Millennial Professor’s View of Higher Education

The blog focuses on many of the different aspects of higher education administration and staffing, from finding a job to creating and maintaining long-term relationships in the academic world. If you are an administrator, this is definitely a blog you should be checking out regularly.

Score:  Active 18.3, Original 22, Helpfulness 23, Authority 22

Total: 85.3

Twitter: @drjtedwards

A Principal’s Reflections

Eric Sheninger reflects on digital leadership and how it affects parental communication and student and faculty engagement. He connects trends in technology with changes in the larger culture.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 23, Helpfulness 23, Authority 25

Total Score: 96

Twitter: @E_sheninger

Academic Computing

A new blog posts about every other month, but it well worth the wait. The focus is on coding in higher education and new technology. It also touches on topics that matter to professors and students who would like to keep up with the way colleges are teaching computer basics and coding.

Score:  Active 10, Original 25, Help 20, Authority 25

Total: 80

Twitter: @neilccbrown

Academic Tech Tips

This blog takes a look at the newest tools and trends that professors and administrators can use in schools. It also provides some help on common tools and how to get the most out of them.

Score:  Active 23, Original 19, Help 20, Authority 17

Total: 79

Email: [email protected]

ACRLog

The blogs focus on things that matter to both librarians and academics. It takes a look at how best to reach students through the library setup, how to manage events and a host of other items that you may not think about when you talk about libraries. It is a niche subject, but it is incredibly helpful to those who need their libraries or who are interested in seeing how best to utilize them in a higher education setting.

Score:  Active 23, Original 25, Helpfulness 19, Authority 22

Total: 89.

Email: [email protected]

A.J. Juliani

A.J. Juliani is the Director of Technology & Innovation for Centennial School District and blogs about anything and everything related to innovation. Not unlike other blogs on this list a lot of the posts focus on project based learning, edtech, implementing design thinking in the K-12 classroom and designing the future of education. However, there are also plenty of other topics covered and the blog offers interesting thoughts to ponder and ideas to implement.

Score: Activity 21, Originality 21, Helpfulness 19, Authority 22.5

Total Score: 83.5

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @ajjuliani

Ask a Tech Teacher

Technology teacher Jacqui Murray provides lesson plans for technology integration and tips on practical matters such as backing up files and speeding up your computer. She also curates a variety of helpful resources.

Score: Activity 22, Originality 18, Helpfulness 17, Authority 17

Total Score: 74

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @AskATechTeacher

assorted stuff

 Educational Technology Specialist Tim Stahmer reflects on the need for change and reform in public schools and suggests relevant literature.

Score: Activity 16, Originality 19, Helpfulness 20, Authority 18.5

Total Score: 72.5

Twitter: @timstahmer

Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension

This blog, by Pernille Ripp, offers a lot of ideas as to how to tackle different things within the classroom and offers teachers a plethora of resources, from ideas for bookclubs, to lesson plans. Pernille is an educational influencer, and the’s creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, a global literacy initiative that has connected more than 500,000 students and Co-founder of EdCamp MadWI.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 21.5, Helpfulness 21, Authority 22

Total Score: 88.5

Twitter: @pernilleripp

Blog High Ed

Blog High Ed pulls blogs on higher education and puts them in a single space. The topics cover the gamut of what you need to know in higher education, from Google Analytics and teaching in the classroom to graduation to the latest news. Anyone attending, teaching, or attached to a college or university should bookmark the site and check back regularly for new information.

Score:  Active 25, Original 10, Help 20, Authority 18.5

Total: 73.5

Twitter: @mherzber

Email: [email protected]

Brilliant or Insane

Their tag line is “education on the edge” which is a good sum up as to what’s posted on this blog. The blog mainly offers tips and tricks to implement in the classroom (from classroom cleaning hacks to how to implement PBL), as well as a few articles surrounding research in the educational field. They also publish up to date teaching hacks books.

Score: Activity 22.5, Originality 24, Helpfulness 25, Authority 25

Total Score: 96.5

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @markbarnes19

Bryan Alexander

One of the best-known authorities for technology in higher education, this blog covers a wide range of tech-related topics that can be inspirational and informative. From finances to international higher education to the latest news in the US, it is always worth a look to see what he has to say on a weekly basis.

Score:  Active 22, Original 23, Helpfulness 21, Authority 25

Total: 91

Twitter: @BryanAlexander

Busy Teacher  

This site offers articles, lesson plans, creative writing prompts and worksheets centered around teaching English. The content is varied age wise – some is suitable for the little ones, some for high school students and beyond. There are also helpful articles about classroom management, which applies to any teacher. It’s definitively a blog worth visiting due to all the different resources available.

Score: Activity 17.5, Originality 18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18

Total Score: 71.5

Email: [email protected]

Well, that does it for letters A-B. Did we miss any?

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E.T.Wilson published in Early Childhood, Education Leadership, Elementary Education, Higher Education, K-12,

What Preschool Can Teach Us About Choice and Opportunity

There is a pantheon of sitcom cliches that, no matter how many times they’ve been done before, always turn up in new ones. Among the repeat offenders: outrageously stressful wedding planning, pregnancy and baby delivery hi-jinks, new parents shopping for the “perfect” preschool, arguments over dolls vs footballs, and how these early childhood influences will determine the baby’s entire future from school choice to occupation and social status.

The sad reality is that the last two of these absurd situations have a kernel of truth. Does getting into the right preschool really determine whether a given child will go to the best university? Probably not; but when everything from friend groups to hobbies can factor into college admissions — and attending college can determine future career opportunities and professional networks — it is easy to see how major decisions can blur into the web of minor decisions surrounding a child’s future.

Early Childhood Competition

Everything concerning kids in America has gotten more competitive, starting early in their lives. Competition for better-paying (and future-proof) careers leads to more intense competition for any professional advantage at school. Getting into the best schools (by any of a number of definitions of “best”) heaps more pressure on kids while they are still in high school. From participating in sports to getting into AP classes, high school today eschews recreation in favor of workaholism and manicured student resumes.

Altogether, life for modern kids looks less like a series of choices and opportunities, and more like a long line of dominoes, set up and and sent cascading over within weeks of their birth, if not before. How can parents possibly hope to line them up just right for success and happiness?

But the problem isn’t just the hyper-competitive atmosphere surrounding the university system, and all the inputs considered in admitting or rejecting students; it is the preoccupation with the importance of college education in the first place.

When it comes to preparing children for the challenges and opportunities of adulthood, part of the messaging we need to fix — and soon — is the idea of ”college above all others”. Tuition prices have exploded in part because demand has exploded. Even historically mid-range schools face a demand beyond their capacity. For-profit schools have had lucrative success in taking advantage of this gold-rush mentality toward degrees, even as their students fail to graduate and default on their student loans in droves. More than a third of all defaults can be attributed to students from for-profit schools, even though they are just 26 percent of borrowers.

Trading School for Something That Works

The most common jobs in America today are retailers, cashiers, and fast-food workers. None of these requires any advanced education. Even filtering opportunity in terms of careers which require some minimum of post-secondary schooling and licensure, there are nearly as many truck drivers as there are nurses. If that comparison seems inappropriate, consider that trucking can be as essential to providing healthcare as nursing: nurses can hardly hope to treat a patient if they lack the necessary supplies and equipment on which they rely.

Trucking actually exemplifies the disconnect we, as a nation, have between the pressure we put on our youth to get educated, and the limitations we construct around how they “contribute” to our collective wealth and well-being. Without truck drivers, there is no clean water, no medicine, no food, and no consumer goods for a vast majority of Americans. But the career path into trucking — as with most skilled trades — takes people somewhere outside the world of universities and degrees.

The same impact trucking has, collectively, can be attributed to electricians, plumbers, and other skilled trades on which the modern world relies, yet bestows no particular social capital. Without electricians, all the gizmos and apps of Apple and Google, two of the world’s wealthiest corporations, would be useless. Without plumbing, our entire healthcare industry would be less preoccupied with inventing the next miracle pill or pushing the boundaries of surgical medicine than it would be with mitigating disease spread by poor sanitation. We are not so insulated from these alternatives as the popular imagination would assume; just ask the folks in Flint, Michigan whether plumbing is a worthwhile vocation.

The Value of Education

None of this disputes the intrinsic value of education, or the importance of giving students opportunity by expanding their access to learning. Rather, it points out how we’ve undermined our own drive to provide kids with the best chance in life by undervaluing the careers, and educational pathways, they might well follow to find their own form of success.

Trade school isn’t just a viable option, it can be downright lucrative, as well as rewarding, secure, and meaningful. But, as with all other things, planting that idea means having the conversation earlier, and undoing the damage of generations of parents and professionals marginalizing the trades that keep America running. Universities aren’t a solution to any of America’s challenges. They are merely one of a spectrum of options people face in deciding where they want to make their mark on the world, contribute to the maintenance and advancement of society, and find both purpose and acceptance among their peers.

The more parents encourage their kids to see the alternatives to college as equally worthy, the more the national conversation will pivot away from how we can give kids a leg up on the competition. At a time when our nation’s youth could feasibly have more options to learn, create, and work than at any time in history, it is absurd that they should be under such extreme pressure to conform to the parameters of a few selective universities.

The old sitcom trope of shopping for a prestigious preschool needs to die — not just for the sake of television comedy, but to reflect a society that celebrates the diversity it already possesses.

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Early Childhood, EdTech & Innovation, Elementary Education, K-12,

The Cautionary Tale of Story

 

Teachers have been telling stories for as long as teachers have taught others. Students are still learning from the stories of our greatest teachers thousands of years later like Plato, Confucius, and Jesus, as examples. But that makes story sound like a classic “old school” pedagogical method, and that is not the characterization I think we should promote.

Narrative is our primary tool for understanding the world around us, and it is a fundamental tool in our ability to processes information.

Yet despite our cultural belief in the importance of story as a teaching tool we really don’t use it much anymore. We all have our students read stories, and most of us still carve out time to read aloud to our students, but few of us use stories as a tool to explain or highlight concepts outside of those to platforms.

I spend a great deal of my research time looking for ways to integrate lessons. I do this because I believe – one, that the real world is integrated and education should follow suit, and two, that it is the only way to meet the growing list of demands on teaching time.

I have come to believe that one of the strongest threads tying all our curricula together is story.

Our focus on data, the science of pedagogy and the hard Common Core push into nonfiction, have left us with sharp, versatile tools, and little desire to use them. Those things do make a difference but they are not the difference.  The difference is our ability to add to our student’s story. I think we have forgotten the importance of story.

Wait, DON’T STOP READING…. NOT yet, give me at least one maybe even two more paragraphs before you drop this as a rambling rant.

An example: A couple of years ago a fifth grade science class I was working with was struggling with the concept of mass.

We expected some of them to get stuck on this as mass is tricky. Weight is easy enough, but the difference between mass and weight is still shaky in most of student’s heads. To be honest most teachers gloss over it because it’s shaky for them as well. So I shared the story of Archimedes and the King’s crown.

Archimedes, brings the concept of mass alive with a “Eureka” moment and a naked street dance that no 5th grader will easily forget.

Another example: Using my new idea to teach with a story I prepared and then set a trap in math class.  And when the complaints and questions about the practicality of our lesson came up, I shared the story of Abraham Wald, who saved hundreds of American pilots in WW2 and explained math is about interrogating the questions asked and the information available to get answers.

Just one more: Oxygen and the elements in general are not truly abstract, but for most if not all of our students they can be. Asking, or even expecting them to jump into STEM classes without seeding their curiosity with story can be a tough sell.

But having them listen to how and why Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen offers insight, understanding and examples of how difficult and how important understanding the unseen can be.

Great teaching has always been centered on giving the student a reason to be curious and teaching them how to explore. I’m convinced stories are where the best seeds of curiosity come from.

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